Total population | |
---|---|
8,000,000 | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Mexico | 738,100–1,000,000 |
Canada | 316,350–1,000,000 |
Philippines | 220,000–600,000 |
Israel | 200,000 |
United Kingdom | 139,000–197,143 |
Costa Rica | 130,000 |
South Korea | 120,000–158,000 |
Germany | 108,845 |
France | 100,000 |
China | 71,493 |
Brazil | 70,000 |
Colombia | 60,000 |
Hong Kong | 60,000 |
India | 60,000 |
Australia | 56,276 |
Japan | 51,321 |
Italy | 50,000 |
United Arab Emirates | 50,000 |
Haiti | 45,000 |
Saudi Arabia | 40,000 |
Argentina | 37,000 |
Norway | 33,509 |
Bahamas | 30,000 |
Lebanon | 25,000 |
Panama | 25,000 |
El Salvador | 19,000 |
New Zealand | 17,751 |
Honduras | 15,000 |
Chile | 12,000 |
Taiwan | 10,645 |
Austria | 10,175 |
Bermuda | 8,000 |
Kuwait | 8,000 |
Guatemala | 6,345 |
Nicaragua | 4,000 |
Cuba | 2,000–3,000 |
Monaco | 430 |
Languages | |
English, Spanish and others. | |
Religion | |
Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and Others | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Americans |
The American diaspora or overseas Americans refers to the population of United States citizens who relocate, temporarily or permanently, to foreign countries.
There are no reliable figures on how many Americans live abroad, but a State Department estimate suggests that the number may be between 3 million and 8 million. Other sources estimate that there are 9 million non-military U.S. citizens living abroad, an increase from the 4 million estimated in 1999. However, these numbers are highly open to dispute as they often are unverified and can change rapidly.
One reasonably "hard" indicator of the U.S. citizen population overseas is offered by the fact that often when they have a child abroad, they obtain a Consular Report of Birth Abroad from a US consulate as a proof of the child's U.S. citizenship. The Bureau of Consular Affairs reports issuing 503,585 such documents over the decade 2000–2009. Based on this, and on some assumptions about the family composition and birth rates, some authors estimate the US civilian population overseas as between 3.6 and 4.3 million.
Sizes of certain subsets of US citizens living abroad can be estimated based on statistics published by the Internal Revenue Service. US Citizens are generally liable for US income tax even if they reside overseas; however, if they receive earned income (wages, salaries, etc.) while residing in a foreign country, they can exclude an amount of foreign earned income from the US taxation or receive credit for foreign taxes paid. The IRS reported that almost 335,000 tax returns with such a foreign-earned income exclusion form were received in 2006. This imposes a lower (and very imprecise) bound on the number of US citizens who were living and working in foreign countries at the time.
In the same tax year, almost 969,000 US taxpayers reported having paid foreign tax on "general limitation income" (i.e., income other than interest, dividends, and other "passive income") from foreign sources on their foreign tax credit forms. Of course, not all of these were actually residing abroad full-time.
There are a wide range of reasons for which Americans might emigrate from the country. While some emigrate for economic reasons, the United States' position as an affluent country and one of many immigrants means that many leave for a chance to experience other parts of the world, to return to their country of origin, for religious reasons, such as missionary work, or to escape policies of the American government. Americans do not easily have access to any foreign country for the purpose of permanent residence (with certain exceptions such as Jews emigrating to Israel), so the American diaspora is relatively small in comparison to the total American population.